Satellites, drones and balloons can make global connectivity a reality – but this space race is about profits not altruismThe US Congress quietly passed an important piece of legislation this month. The Space Resource Exploration and Utilisation Act – yet to be signed by Barack Obama – grants American companies unconstrained rights to the mining of any resources – from water to gold. The era of space exploration is over; the era of space exploitation has begun!While the 1967 Outer Space Treaty explicitly prohibits governments from claiming planets and other celestial resources, as their property, Congress reasoned that such restrictions do not apply to the materials found and mined there.The bill’s timing might, at first, seem surprising – after all, Nasa, the US space agency, is almost constantly fighting against budget cuts – but is easily explained by the entrance of new space explorers on to the scene, namely the Silicon Valley billionaires who are pouring millions into “disrupting” space, Nasa, and the space programme of yore. From Google’s Eric Schmidt and Larry Page to Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Tesla’s Elon Musk, Silicon Valley’s elites have committed considerable resources to the cause.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/29/silicon-valley-exploits-space-evgeny-morozov